Cats and Printers Don't Mix

I have been writing a series of articles detailing my efforts to sign up for a new medical insurance policy on Obamacare. A few days ago I went for it and actually applied. Which I’ll be writing about, later. As part of the process, though, I carefully printed out each page of the lengthy and involved application process and all of the Terms and Conditions statements so that if something went wrong I’d have physical proof of what I’d done.

The problem is, one of my cats is fascinated / agitated by my printer. The sound of it starting to print brings him on the run no matter where he is in the house. And he usually then tries desperately to deal with this strange object that makes noise, pulling a sheet of paper in one side and sending it out the other. He springs around it, crawls on it, peers into every nook and cranny. And of course, claws and bites at the paper as it goes in and comes out. He’s sometimes managed to jam the printer, rip and bite holes in the pages, and I can’t count the number of times one of his paws has come down on the ON/OFF button with enough force to shut the printer off in mid-job.

Normally I just hold him back, laughing at his frantic antics. With the ACA application, though, I was printing out so many pages it was driving him into a frenzy. Finally I picked him up, carried him out of the room – him still struggling to get back to the printer and attack whatever it was inside that box that was doing these things – and closed the door. He scratched and yowled until I finished printing and let him in. Where upon he rushed back to the printer, made sure it wasn’t doing anything, then lost interest and took a nap.

I hope I don’t have to go through this application process again, it would be tedious and difficult for me, and I don’t know if the cat could survive it. O_O;

Comments

Do you know how to "print" to PDF? When you hit "CNTRL-P" there's a drop-down box that lists your printer name and other available printers. If you scroll (usually) to the top, you should see "Adobe PDF." This will allow you to save a copy of the document to your computer in any file folder you wish. When my printer was broken a few months ago (or now when I'm too lazy to turn it on), printing to PDF is valuable. I can save everything, email it to myself as an attachment, whatever, and then decide if I REALLY want those pieces of paper. Anyway -- I hope you find that helpful. It took me a while to figure that out.